


Happy Endings

by grossferatu



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Aphobia, Blindness, Break Up, Canon Asexual Character, Canon Disabled Character, Domestic Violence, F/F, Hurt, Hurt/Cold Comfort, M/M, Mobility Devices As Weapons, No One Is Human, Post-Season/Series 05, Post-Season/Series 05 AU, Protective Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, The End (The Magnus Archives) - Freeform, wlw mlm solidarity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28916571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grossferatu/pseuds/grossferatu
Summary: Georgie's different.It's not the kind of difference Melanie can live with.(A fic about a breakup, and friendship, and happy endings)
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	Happy Endings

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Better](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605210) by [grossferatu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grossferatu/pseuds/grossferatu). 
  * Inspired by [make you better](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24334666) by [Alias (anafabula)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anafabula/pseuds/Alias). 



> This is in the same universe as my story "Better" which you can find linked in the inspired notes. This is also inspired heavily by Alias's work with Georgie, and you can find the relevant fic also linked. 
> 
> Big thanks to Alias (I keep almost writing Elias, oops!) for brainstorming. Seriously, go read his fic, it's incredible.

“I’m breaking up with you.”

The words hung there, in the house, like droplets of water.

“What?” Georgie sat up from where she’d been sprawled on the couch, her gaze locked on an episode of something without a description track. “You can’t.” She didn’t sound upset, only confused, and Melanie sighed.

“Why not?” She’d been slowly mailing her things to Jon and Martin’s place for months—not ideal, but far better than any of her other options—and Georgie hadn’t noticed. She wasn’t afraid of Melanie leaving. She worried, sometimes, in that artificial way she worried about everything, but she didn’t fear it. Didn’t consider it a _real_ possibility. “I’m not immune to the world anymore.”

Georgie laughed, still confused. “That’s not why we stayed together,” she said. “What are you talking about, the world is _fixed_ again. Martin did that. He told us when he found us.”

“Yeah,” Melanie said. “He did say that. You believed him?” Jon’s absence had been conspicuous. Martin said he didn’t remember anything, that he was a professor. That was strange. Martin had looked older, hair half grey. The kind of middle aged that would look the same for thirty years.

“Of course.” She sounded more perturbed now. “Our little group scattered, and London’s gone. What else could it mean?”

“Right,” Melanie said. “Look, Georgie—”

“I don’t like that word very much,” Georgie said, interrupting. “Melanie, we need each other. You need me. I need you.” She hadn’t actually stood up from the couch, Melanie realized, just shifted around, and she was still watching the show. Melanie could tell some of the voices apart, but it seemed like at least a few characters had the same actor, or similar voices, and it might have been in a language she didn’t know. Subtitled, maybe?

Georgie changed the channel, sometimes, but complained about it. She didn’t like the shows Melanie picked, most of the time, and had once made a big show of how awful it was that they’d bothered to make such terrible programming accessible. Melanie deserved better.

“I’m still breaking up with you,” Melanie said. “People do that. They break up.”

Georgie laughed, either at the television or herself. “Don’t tell me you’re also leaving me for a man?” she asked. She was going for a light tone and badly missing the mark, and Melanie felt her hand clench into a fist around her bag.

She waited for Georgie to realize what she’d just said. The tv show continued to play. A character laughed. Georgie shifted again on the couch. “Sit next to me,” she said, and patted the fabric next to her.

“No,” Melanie said. “I’m breaking up with you. I’m not leaving you for anyone. I’m just… leaving.” She wasn’t going to touch the other part of the question, what it meant about what she thought of Jon, probably. “Sorry.” She was sorry, a bit. She loved Georgie. She didn’t love what this happy ending had done to her. 

“You can’t,” Georgie said, absolute certainty in her voice. “That’s not the sort of thing you break up with a person over.”

“Did Jon break up with you?”

Georgie laughed, or maybe a character on the show laughed. “No, no, I did. A girl has needs, you know? And he was—still is, when you think about it—kind of self-centered. Therapy didn’t stick with him. Not like it did with you.” She sounded proud, then. She was, presumably, beaming, if she was looking at Melanie at all.

A kernel of compressed anger popped, and Melanie forced herself to stay still. “Right,” she said. “I think that’s why I’m breaking up with you.”

The tv shut off. It didn’t click—they didn’t have that kind of TV, apparently—but the voices stopped. “Melanie,” Georgie said. She still wasn’t frightened, of course. She was standing. “I’m sorry, I just sort of lost track of how to be in a relationship when everything’s normal. I’ll get better.”

“You get that Martin was lying to himself, right?” Melanie asked. “Normal doesn’t mean a world where British kids get smallpox.”

“It’s close enough, though, right? Elias Bouchard is dead. You’re happy about that.” It wasn’t not a question, but a statement of fact about something Melanie had never wanted to discuss with Georgie.

“I’m not.” They weren’t going to have a row, Melanie thought. They had no reasons to have a row, and—she felt immediately guilty for thinking this—Melanie was a perfectly acceptable lay. She didn’t go to therapy anymore, but that’s because she hadn’t found a good one yet. “I’m leaving.”

“You are?” Georgie asked. She sounded on the verge of laughter, again.

“Yep.”

Melanie made for the door.

“Without all your stuff?”

“Sent it on ahead. I’ve been planning this for a while.”

Hurried footsteps followed Melanie. Not Georgie’s usual gait, but rushed, the rhythm falling to pieces every moment as she sped up.

Melanie reached for the doorknob and her hand hit the wool of Georgie’s jumper instead. “Georgie,” Melanie said. Anger was still a strange emotion, internalized to her chest and face in a way it hadn’t been while she had the bullet in her leg. “This is ridiculous.” She tightened her grip on her cane. She knew where Georgie was, and she had a long stick. It wasn’t a particularly powerful stick, since it was partially collapsible, but it was something. She didn’t think she’d have to use it—not with Georgie—but she’d always thought about how she could use her aids as weapons.

Force of habit.

“I’m worried about you!” Georgie said. “This isn’t something you would do.”

Melanie, finally, laughed. “I am doing it,” she said. “No need to get hypothetical about it.”

She smacked Georgie in what she was pretty sure was an ankle, from the feel of it, and shouldered past her, pulling the door open roughly, not caring if it smacked into Georgie. She would be fine.

“How are you getting there?” Georgie asked. “You can’t drive, you can’t—”

“Jon’s picking me up,” Melanie said. She’d been hoping to conceal that bit of information, but. Well. Needs must.

“Excuse me?” The door hadn’t fully shut, of course, but before Georgie could do something drastic, somehow worse than running to block a door, Melanie heard a set of tripod footsteps, running.

“Melanie,” Jon said, sounding just slightly out of breath. “I’m not going to insult you by assuming you need help down the stairs, but do you need help to my car?”

Melanie nodded, and put out her arm, the one holding her bag. Jon grabbed it, and she promptly dragged him down the stairs. She didn’t want to ignore Georgie’s footsteps, wanted, a bit, to go back inside and try and explain, but instead she let him guide her to the car. “This is the back seat, right?” she asked.

“Yeah. Martin’s… Martin’s a better driver. He’s actually driving.” His cane thumped against part of his door, and he shut it. There were a few more noises, and then a final dull thud, which Melanie assumed was him letting the cane sit in the foot well, out of his grip.

“What’s Georgie doing?” She settled herself into her seat, placing her bag next to her.

“She’s just watching the car drive away. I can’t tell you anything else. Obviously.”

Melanie snorted. “Obviously. Thanks for the ride.”

“It’s no problem,” Martin said. “Anything for a friend.”

That made a question itch, half-formed, in Melanie’s thoughts. “If Georgie had?”

“No,” Jon and Martin said, at the same time. “Absolutely not,” Martin clarified. “She’s not our friend.”

“Oh,” Melanie said.

“She can’t believe you’re leaving her for a man,” Jon said. “The same one, even, in her thinking.”

Melanie twitched, an old, buried fear sticking its knife in her back. “How did you—”

“I just know her,” Jon said, too quickly. “Knew her. You dragged me down the stairs like you were fleeing. I didn’t think—I didn’t think you were _afraid_ of her.”

“I wasn’t,” Melanie said. “She—you can see it too, can’t you. That this is all wrong?”

“Yeah,” Jon said, a beat too late, and Melanie let herself imagine him nodding, catching himself forgetting that it’s possible for someone to get information other than from eyes. “What did she do?”

“She blocked the door,” Melanie said. It was surreal to admit. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t be so—”

“Still?” Jon asked.

“Yeah. You said she was just… watching me go?”

“Yeah.” He was still moving around, settling himself. “It’s not right. This isn’t how _she_ would change, if she wanted to.”

“Could she have been replaced?” Martin offered, reminding Melanie of his presence. “She’s not a dog, or anything, but everything’s still so—”

“No,” Jon said. “That’s still not how this works. That’s her. You didn’t do this.”

“Then _what_?” Melanie asked. “I had to hit her. With my cane. To get her out of the way. She doesn’t—she didn’t use my blindness against me, not like this. She’s not like those fucking people we rescued, she never—she didn’t buy into any of my lies, either.”

She didn’t expect Jon to laugh.

“What?” Now she was a bit angry at him, too. She didn’t want to be laughed at. Not now.

“No, it’s just. I forget that—they make good weapons, don’t you think? And no one thinks about it. It’s amazing.” The mirth was gone from his voice by the end. “I have an idea. I don’t _know_ , but there’s—” He halted, and tapped his fingers against something. “She’s not a _void_ to the powers, just to the ones that are the most relevant to _me_. She’s the End’s creature and I think…” He sighed. “Okay, so, Martin, this may be _slightly_ your fault.”

“She’s not an animal!” Martin protested, something that would have made no sense at all if Melanie hadn’t met Daisy exactly once. “Sure, Melanie stinks of the Lonely but that’s not—”

Jon’s confusion matched Melanie’s own. “What?”

“Well, she does,” Martin said, defensively. “It’s not an insult!”

“Okay,” Melanie said. “I’m still curious how exactly this is your fault.”

“Martin wanted this to be a happy _ending_ ,” Jon said. “Georgie has been effectively eating you. I’m sorry.”

“Does she know what she’s doing?” Melanie asked. She had assumed, and had been mostly right, that her messy divorce from the Eye meant she was, fundamentally, freer than anyone else she knew still tangled up with the supernatural and granted any agency about it. That she could still be food was terrifying. That her girlfriend had been feeding off her was worse.

Jon sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Melanie dropped her head back against her seat. “Right,” she said. “Right.” She pressed her cheek against the cold glass of the window. “How long until we’re at your place?”

“At least half an hour, I think,” Jon said. “I find the suburbs hard to navigate. You can sleep if you like.”

“I think I will, yeah,” she said. “You can’t kill me.”

Jon’s smile was clear from his voice. “No,” he said. “I can’t.”


End file.
